Read Chapter 28: The Final Opening

The noise reached Arthur before the house did—string music, laughter, the clink of glasses drifting across the moonlit lawns of Marlowe Hall. He crouched behind a clipped yew hedge at the eastern edge of the property, watching guests in evening dress spill from a row of Daimlers and Bentleys at the front portico.

Eddie had been right about one thing. The Baron wasn't fleeing quietly. He was throwing a farewell party.

"Christ," Arthur muttered, wiping rain from his brow. His own suit—borrowed from Eddie's cousin, who worked as a butler in Kensington—felt a size too large. But the invitation Eddie had lifted from a tailor's shop in Mayfair two days prior had been enough to get him past the gate. The name on it belonged to a minor viscount who'd cancelled at the last moment, recovering from a bout of influenza.

A fact Eddie had obtained by calling the viscount's household and posing as his physician.

Arthur adjusted his black tie, stepped from behind the hedge, and walked toward the service entrance with the unhurried stride of a man who belonged.

The kitchen was chaos—steam rising from copper pots, a sweating chef shouting orders, servers balancing trays of champagne flutes. No one looked twice at Arthur as he moved through the scullery and up a narrow servant's stair.

The diary's code clattered in his memory as he counted doors on the second floor. *Twelve windows from the east. Three doors. The one with the iron handle.*

He found it. A plain oak door with a black iron handle, tucked between a linen cupboard and a bathroom. The lock was old—a mortice design, easily defeated with the tension wrench and rake he'd brought from Eddie's toolbox. It clicked open in under a minute.

The study smelled of leather and cigar smoke. Moonlight streamed through tall windows, catching the dust motes Arthur disturbed as he crossed to the desk. He pulled the diary from his inside pocket—the same diary that had belonged to his father, its code cracked only last week—and laid it open on the green blotter.

Page forty-seven. Line three. Letters six through eleven.

GERIAT.

Not a word. A combination.

Arthur crossed to the painting of a hunting dog that hung beside the fireplace. He lifted it off its hook and found the safe behind, its dial dull brass. His fingers worked the combination with a steadiness that surprised him—four left, seven right, twice left. The bolt released with a satisfying clunk.

He pulled the door open.

Empty.

Arthur stared into the black interior. Felt along the shelves with his fingertips. Nothing. No cash, no bearer bonds, no manifest of what the crew had risked their lives for on that rain-soaked night at Little Crosby Junction.

The manifest.

He stepped back, studying the room. The diary had been his father's, the code his father's invention. But the safe was a decoy—maybe had always been a decoy. The Baron had built his empire on lies layered within lies.

And then Arthur saw it.

The painting he'd lifted from the wall—a hunting dog, pointing at unseen game—hung crookedly on its wire. But the painting on the opposite wall was different. It was a landscape, a country house. And the wall around it was newer. Slightly lighter plaster.

He crossed to it, pressed his palm against the frame.

The painting swung open on hidden hinges.

Behind it was not plaster but steel—a flush-mounted door with a recessed handle and what looked like a combination lock far more sophisticated than the one behind the desk. The diary's code wouldn't open this one. It was a different mechanism entirely. Digital. Electronic.

"Bloody hell," Arthur breathed.

The sound of footsteps in the corridor outside froze him. He eased the painting shut, straightened his jacket, and was examining a row of riding crops by the time the door opened.

A footman appeared. "Sir? The drawing room is through the main hall."

"Apologies," Arthur said, his voice level. "Lost my way. These old houses, you know."

The footman's eyes narrowed. "The party is for guests of Lord Ashworth. I don't recall your face from the guest list."

"I came with the Pembertons. Late arrival."

The footman's hand drifted toward a bell pull on the wall. "I'm afraid I must ask you to—"

A woman's voice cut through from the corridor. "That's quite all right, Thompson."

Arthur's blood went cold. He knew that voice.

The woman stepped into the doorway. She was in her late fifties, silver-haired, wearing a dark blue evening gown. The same woman who had shot out the tires of Victor's men in Wapping. The woman who knew his father.

"You're needed in the kitchen," she told the footman. "The soufflés have collapsed."

The footman hesitated, then nodded and disappeared.

She closed the door behind him.

"Arthur Phelps." She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "You've been busy."

"Who are you?"

"Someone who knew your father better than you did." She crossed to the desk, ran a gloved finger along its edge. "And someone who knows what's behind that painting."

Arthur's heart hammered. "You know about the vault."

"I know everything about this house. I helped build it." She turned to face him. "My name is Eleanor Cole. I was your father's controller during the war. And the code in that diary—the one that opened the decoy safe—was mine."

Arthur felt the floor shift beneath him. "My father never mentioned you."

"He wouldn't have. He didn't know I was his controller." She smiled thinly. "I was just a Wren who typed his messages. At least, that's what he believed. We all had our secrets."

"Then why help me?"

"Because the Baron killed your father. And he killed mine." Her eyes went hard. "The Earl of Marlowe—the man who calls himself the Baron—is my brother."

The revelation hit Arthur like a physical blow. He gripped the edge of the desk. "Your brother—"

"The family name was Cole before Father inherited the earldom. I was written out of the will when I refused to marry the man he'd chosen." She gestured toward the vault. "That vault contains the real proceeds of the Little Crosby job, along with everything else my brother has stolen over twenty years. I've been waiting for someone with the nerve to help me take it."

Footsteps echoed in the corridor again. Louder this time. More purposeful.

Eleanor's expression tightened. "That will be Foley. My brother's banker—and the only man in England who knows the vault's combination besides the Earl himself."

"Then we take Foley."

"You can't take Foley. He's untouchable." She moved to the window, peered through the curtains. "But he's also greedy. He's been skimming three percent off the top for years. I have proof."

Artie's jaw tightened. "So what do you propose?"

Eleanor turned back to him. "There's a safe house in Pimlico. My brother uses it when he wants to disappear. He'll be there tonight after the party, counting his money before he leaves the country." She pulled a key from her décolletage and pressed it into Arthur's hand. "This opens the vault. The electronic lock is a backup—a six-digit date. The day your father died."

Arthur stared at the key. "How do you know that date?"

"Because I chose it. I've been preparing this for thirty years." Her smile returned, colder than before. "You're not the only one who's been planning a heist, Mr. Phelps."

Shouts erupted from the corridor beyond. Booted feet thundered on the floorboards.

"Victor's men," Eleanor said. "They've found you."

Arthur looked at the painting hiding the vault, then at the key in his hand. The real loot was within reach. But so was the trap.

The door burst open.

Standing in the frame, flanked by two heavies, was a man Arthur recognized from photographs and nightmares—Foley, the Baron's banker, with a revolver in his hand and a smile on his lips.

"Mr. Phelps," Foley said. "The Baron has been expecting you."